Hitherto, various kinds of developing agent penetrants have been investigated for increasing the coloring property of color photographic light-sensitive materials and, in particular, a process of quickening color development by adding benzyl alcohol to a color developer has been widely used at present for the processing of color photographic materials because of accelerating a coloring effect, particularly color photographic papers.
However, in the case of using benzyl alcohol, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, alkanolamine, etc., must be used as the solvent thereof due to the low water solubility thereof. Since, however, the above-described compounds including benzyl alcohol have high BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) and COD (chemical oxygen demand) pollution loading values, it is preferred to avoid use of benzyl alcohol as much as possible.
Furthermore, even in the case of using the aforesaid solvent, it requires a long time to dissolve benzyl alcohol, and, hence, it is also better to avoid use of benzyl alcohol for the purpose of reducing the work load involved in preparing the solution of benzyl alcohol.
Also, when benzyl alcohol existing in a color developer is carried in a bleach bath or a blix (bleach-fix) bath which is a post-bath of the color developer, it causes the formation of the leuco dye of a cyan dye, which further causes the reduction of coloring density. Still further, when such benzyl alcohol exists in a bleaching solution or a blixing solution, it delays the washing out speed of developer components from color photographic materials, and, hence, it sometimes results in adverse influences on the stability or storability of color images of processed color photographic materials. Accordingly, it is also preferred to avoid use of benzyl alcohol for these reasons, also.
Color development is generally performed for about 3 to 4 minutes, but recently with the shortening of the time for delivering finished photographic products and the reduction of laboratory work, it has been desired to shorten the processing time for photographic materials.
On the other hand, when the development time for color photographic materials is shortened without using benzyl alcohol, which is a coloring accelerator, the coloring density is inevitably greatly reduced.
For solving the above-described problems, various color development accelerators have been described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,950,970, 2,515,147, 2,496,903, 2,304,925, 4,038,075, 4,119,462, British Pat. No. 1,455,413, Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 15831/78, 62450/80, 62451/80, 62452/80, 62453/80, 50536/83 and 162256/85 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), Japanese patent publication Nos. 12422/76, 49728/80, etc. However, even by the use of these color development accelerators, a satisfactory coloring density has not yet been obtained.
Also, methods for incorporating color developing agents in color photographic materials are proposed as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,719,492, 3,342,559, 3,342,597, Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 6235/81, 16133/81, 97531/82, 83565/82, etc., but these methods have disadvantages in that the color development is delayed and the formation of fog is increased, and, thus, are not proper methods.
Furthermore, a method of using a silver chloride emulsion as described, for example, in Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 95345/83, 232342/84, 19140/85, etc., may shorten the color development time but the formation of fog is likely to increase in the presence of benzyl alcohol.
Therefore, a method for forming of sufficient color images in a short period of time of 2 minutes or less, by using color developers which do not substantially contain benzyl alcohol, has not heretofore been found.
Bromide ion is generally used as a antifoggants in the color developers for silver halide color photographic materials, and the amount thereof to be added is from 5.times.10.sup.-3 to 10.times.10.sup.-3 mol/liter or so. In this connection, it is reasonable to assume that the reduction of the bromide ion concentration will result in the improvement of the color forming property of photographic materials. In the conventional color development method for processing color print papers in the presence of benzyl alcohol for 3 minutes or more, however, the reduction of the bromide ion concentration to that lower than the above-mentioned concentration causes a problem of an extreme increase of fog, and therefore, the reduction of the bromide ion concentration has been impossible in conventional methods up to the present.
For the reduction of the color development time, a method has been described using an emulsion which substantially comprises silver chloride, for example, in Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 19140/85, 37634/83, and 108533/83. However, when the color photographic materials with such emulsion are processed with color developers containing benzyl alcohol, the generation of fog is increased. For this, the use of the fog-prevention technique as described in Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 95345/83 and 232342/84 still is insufficient.
A method of quickening color development for 3 minutes for processing silver halide color photographic materials by the use of a color developer having a coupler that a specific group is introduced, and not containing a benzyl alcohol and a bromine ion is described in Japanese patent application (OPI) Nos. 174836/84 and 177553/84. However, it has been further desired to develop a new method for forming a color image with a sufficient color forming property of less fog, even in a short period of color development time of 2 minutes and 30 seconds or less.